Letter to Editor of Advertiser 20/11/2013

Fear not Richard Angove of the Property Council (Advertiser Letters 20 November 2013). All is not lost. There is life after the end of growth!
In fact, about 2% of our built infrastructure must be renewed every year just to maintain it. That means there will always be work for
"developers" and their Property Council. The problem is that when you start to grow your population at e.g. 1% per year you have just increased
your built infrastructure spending needs by 50%! (i.e. an extra 1% on top of your 2% turnover). And when other Australian states have recently
been growing by more than 2% per year - you can see that they wind up in an infrastructure black hole rapidly and their quality of life plummets.
And rather than focusing on birth rates, Malcolm King should be looking at dependency ratios (working age people versus retirees AND children).
Our dependency ratio has fluctuated up and down over history. It is especially advantageous just now and was far "worse" during the 1960s but
the world did not end then and it will not end tomorrow as our population ages.